It’s been one month since my grandmother, our Mimi, passed away. I understand how fortunate I am that I haven’t felt a loss of this magnitude yet in my life. But I’ve never not lived in fear of this moment, and the grief has been as disorienting as I worried it would be. There was just no one better or more special than her. It’s impossible to not feel an emptiness inside, and I can’t hide that I’m wandering lost—her love and her presence in our lives was our north star.
I’ve been allowing myself to work through the emotions when they come up and finding ways to reconcile with our new normal. I’ve made peace with the fact that, at 94 (almost 95), it was her time. We are all very grateful that she did not suffer and that we were gifted so many years together. I know she wouldn’t have wanted us to wallow. After all, her mantra was, “trot on!”
As I work to, “trot on!” I accept the fact that I don’t yet have any answers, and I don’t anticipate the weight of my repeating thoughts, how can she actually be gone?, feeling less heavy any time soon. But every day I am choosing to find little glimmers of hope that reveal the silver lining of loss, because that’s where I know Mimi lives on.
She lives in joy and in laughter, in the wonder found in life’s little things, in the gifts of nature, in cherished relationships developed through a devoted commitment to connection. I know she would want me to live leading with love rather than fear. So I’ll continue loving: who I’m with, what I do, where I am. If I do that, I’ll always be connected to where she is—in the very best of me that I can give.
To Mimi.
